The aim of this paper is to estimate the sensitivity of the natural rate of growth to the actual rate of growth for 15 OECD countries over the period 1961 to 1995, on the hypothesis that the natural rate of growth is not exogenously given. To do this we estimate the natural rate of growth and,...

Recent theoretical work has shown that the incidence of ad valorem and specific taxes may differ and each may be over or under-shifted onto consumers in the presence of imperfect competition. These results are used to derive a method of estimating market power and conduct. An application is made...

This paper provides some of the first empirical evidence on the psychological impact of past unemployment. Using eleven waves of the German socio-economic panel (GSOEP) data set, we show, as is now standard, that those currently unemployed have far lower life satisfaction scores than do the...

This paper presents an extended model of cumulative growth in which the effects of innovation and catching-up are considered. The effect of innovation adds another source of cumulative growth to that of the traditional models and allows for the consideration of the importance of non-price...

We look at the different ways of aggregating dual use products exports to give the security perception of exporter countries and their consistency with the relevant export control regimes. Also, we analyze different models of export controls highlighting the role of the perception of security,...

Given heterogeneity in incomes and health risks, with asymmetric information in the latter, preferences over the public-private mix in health insurance and care are derived. Results concerning crowding-out in the presence of adverse selection are established. For low-risk individuals,...

We examine the effect of international price arbitrage on the effectiveness of unilateral export controls. The restriction on the quality of exports of security sensitive products limits the outside option of domestic customers: if the product available on the international market is of low...

Composition bias in aggregate wages is often a scapegoat for the apparent unresponsiveness of wages over the cycle. Since Bils (1985) and in particular Solon et al. (1994), who find that that real wages are highly pro-cyclical a general consensus has emerged that the observed 'mild' cyclicality...

Over the last several years debate over monetary policy has focused on two issues, inflation targeting and asset price bubbles. This paper explores the case for explicitly targeting asset price bubbles, a policy that the Federal Reserve Bank has opposed on the grounds that it is both infeasible...